The invention relates to a drive control system for an imprinting apparatus and, more particularly, to a drive control system for a mailing machine and interfaceable postage meter.
Generally, high speed mailing system will include an inserter which seriately delivers envelopes to a mailing machine postage meter for indicia printing on the individual mailpieces. Customarily, the mailing machine includes a transport arrangement which delivers the individual mailpieces received from the inserter to a printing station whereupon the attached postage meter prints an indicia on the mailpiece and subsequently thereto the transport system ejects the mailpiece therefrom for further processing or collection. It is noted that it is also customery for the mailing machine to include a postage meter drive arrangement which is coupled to the postage meter when the postage meter is mounted on a mailing machine for driving the postage meter print drum and displacing a postage meter security member commonly comprising a shutter bar assemble interlocking to the print drum drive assembly.
With respect to such high speed systems, the postage meter represents the limiting factor for system throughput. This is because it is a requirement that the postage meter print drum be brought to a complete stop and the security system engaged and disengaged with each print cycle of the postage meter. This requires that during each cycle, the shutter bar mechanism within the postage meter must be actuated to a non-inhibiting position prior to actuation of the print drum. Additionally, prior to the indicia printing, the print drum must be accelerated to a constant speed. The postage indicia and the advertisement slogan are usually printed while the drum is at the constant speed referred to as the "slew speed". After the printing, the drum must then be decelerated to a home or stop position and the shutter bar must be pulled back to the home, print-inhibiting position. When the drum is at the constant "slew speed", the tangential velocity on the surface of the drum must be equal to the mail velocity at the print location controlled by the transport system. Unless one is willing to buckle the mail, or the system has a capability to slow down the mail, the mail speed at the print location must be equal to or slightly greater than the mail ejection speed of the inserter. In order to increase the system throughput, the inserter must increase the mail ejection speed. This would require the print drum to have higher constant "slew speed" and the magnitudes of the accelerations for the print drum and the shutter bar would also have to be increased. So a conventional design approach for a faster mailing system would call for larger meter drive motors to achieve higher speed and provide larger torque. But this would increase the physical size, the power consumption, the heat dissipation, and the overall system cost of the machine. Further more, operating the meter at a higher speed and larger magnitudes of acceleration and deceleration would promote premature wear in the meter and the meter drive assembly.